Spaced Cowboy:TerminalEchoes: VendorXeno: GoldSpider: "Those who fail to learn erase the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."

There it is again. Seriously, how much mercury do you have to eat to think that changing a street sign is erasing history? Talk about a total loss of perspective...

Sorry, I agree with GoldSpider. I LIVE in Memphis and this is a stupid idea. Good or bad, the Civil War did happen. It's part of history. It's part of who we are today. It's stupid to try and erase the dark spots. Accept them and move on.

No one is erasing history. We're erasing your sad, century long devotion to honoring those dark spots as your "heritage."

Try learning about history from, oh i don't know, a book perhaps. You really shouldn't be learning about the history of your country from flags, road signs, and placards at state parks.

Well crap. Let me just go ahead and burn this MA History degree from the U of Memphis since I've apparently never read a history book.

It's not just "their" heritage, it's the country's. Sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable (and perhaps it should), but "making it go away" isn't the proper response to ugly chapters in our history.

Want to make sure we never forget the history? Rename the streets for Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman. Name them for Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Don't name them for Klansmen and traitors.

TerminalEchoes:Rapmaster2000: People just don't want anything to change. Especially Southerners who always handle change the worst. Over the last 50 years all of these Yankees moved down and took the jobs that Southerners couldn't do because Southerners wouldn't change.

If Southerners had changed and spent more time working on math rather than practicing football, then they might have prevented the Yankee influx that has supplanted their inferior culture and heritage. These Southern people have no one to blame but themselves for the end of their traditions. That's how it's always worked. The winners write history.

If you people had collectively been more industrious, then you could be sitting around Manhattan, yammering about how the biscuits are so much better in Birmingham. Alas, you have to hear me lament the lack of decent bagels while you wait on me at the Waffle House.

Sounds to me like you need to wipe your vagina.

No, I'm calm, cool, and collected down here with all of these easy Southern women. They like guys with money.

farm machine:The cleansing of history continues as the intolerant continue to widen their scope of what is offensive. Why not leave these parks named as is as a testament to ill conceived failures? A tribute to our ability to persevere and triumph over adversity. When we lose sight of where we've come from don't we also risk letting history repeat itself?

So can I name the street you live on Hitler Way? Stalin Street? It keeps history dirty and is definately a testement to ill concieved failures and our ability to persevere and triumpth over adversity. How about the Hun Highway, The Mongolian Mile, Black Pleage Epidemic Expressway?

Dr Dreidel:You're from the South? Awesome - talk about biscuits and football and NASCAR and Texas oil and Florida/LA heat and have a silly accent and wear overalls and drink you some sweetea. DON'T, however, be proud of secession, civil war and slavery.

That's the point. Southerners aren't allowed to do any of that without having some assholes rub the rest of it in their faces. If you keep insulting people with something for long enough, they adopt it with pride just to be contrary and piss you off.

TerminalEchoes:Rapmaster2000: People just don't want anything to change. Especially Southerners who always handle change the worst. Over the last 50 years all of these Yankees moved down and took the jobs that Southerners couldn't do because Southerners wouldn't change.

If Southerners had changed and spent more time working on math rather than practicing football, then they might have prevented the Yankee influx that has supplanted their inferior culture and heritage. These Southern people have no one to blame but themselves for the end of their traditions. That's how it's always worked. The winners write history.

If you people had collectively been more industrious, then you could be sitting around Manhattan, yammering about how the biscuits are so much better in Birmingham. Alas, you have to hear me lament the lack of decent bagels while you wait on me at the Waffle House.

Sounds to me like you need to wipe your vagina.

Also, I thought I'd give you some help here. Don't repeat what you just said. You're telling people that you don't know very much about vaginas.

VendorXeno:Ah, I see your confusion. You can't distinguish between a trivial monument and historical facts. That's why when people who don't like a trivial monument to someone or something they don't respect replace it you think it's somehow able to erase all the history about the person that monument is dedicated to.

What confuses me is the amount of butthurt these "trivial monuments" seem to cause among the compulsively-offended.

Nabb1:KenShabby: Nabb1: oldfarthenry: Ya know - I "could" point out that the star-spangled banner was a poem about a war you guys LOST!

/tries to deflect heat off them-there southern folk

You could, but you'd be wrong.

Yeah, that was the War of 1812.

Yes, he brings that up a lot. A whole lot. I expect him to post a pic of Canadian soldiers burning the White House any moment now.

Well, just consider two things. The war was started by the US attempting to annex large parts of Canada. You were thrown back acoss the border and not only did not fullfil the mission, came perilously close to losing significant territory yourself.

The second point is that in any encounters of even marginally comparable numbers, the US decisively won only once, and that battle (New Orleans) occurred after the peace was signed.

Now, if an American wants to maintain that it was essentially a draw, I would say, debatable, but OK. It was a negotiated peace. You still came out of it with no significant gain and a heck of a lot of damage. Me, I'm just glad we didn't keep Detroit.

It's not just "their" heritage, it's the country's. Sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable (and perhaps it should), but "making it go away" isn't the proper response to ugly chapters in our history.

No one is making the history go away. Where do you keep pulling this nonsense from? Have you considered being less retarded and maybe trying to grasp this simple concept that history remains despite the lack of your road signs.

You'll still be able to go to a library (if they have any left down south) and read all about these historical turds. Just because a state park that you've probably never visited will no longer honor the name of some shiat stain, doesn't mean we as a nation stop understanding those events. It simply means we stop honoring shiat stains. It really is as simple as that.

TerminalEchoes:Spaced Cowboy: TerminalEchoes: VendorXeno: GoldSpider: "Those who fail to learn erase the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."

There it is again. Seriously, how much mercury do you have to eat to think that changing a street sign is erasing history? Talk about a total loss of perspective...

Sorry, I agree with GoldSpider. I LIVE in Memphis and this is a stupid idea. Good or bad, the Civil War did happen. It's part of history. It's part of who we are today. It's stupid to try and erase the dark spots. Accept them and move on.

No one is erasing history. We're erasing your sad, century long devotion to honoring those dark spots as your "heritage."

Try learning about history from, oh i don't know, a book perhaps. You really shouldn't be learning about the history of your country from flags, road signs, and placards at state parks.

Well crap. Let me just go ahead and burn this MA History degree from the U of Memphis since I've apparently never read a history book.

Rapmaster2000:TerminalEchoes: Rapmaster2000: People just don't want anything to change. Especially Southerners who always handle change the worst. Over the last 50 years all of these Yankees moved down and took the jobs that Southerners couldn't do because Southerners wouldn't change.

If Southerners had changed and spent more time working on math rather than practicing football, then they might have prevented the Yankee influx that has supplanted their inferior culture and heritage. These Southern people have no one to blame but themselves for the end of their traditions. That's how it's always worked. The winners write history.

If you people had collectively been more industrious, then you could be sitting around Manhattan, yammering about how the biscuits are so much better in Birmingham. Alas, you have to hear me lament the lack of decent bagels while you wait on me at the Waffle House.

Sounds to me like you need to wipe your vagina.

No, I'm calm, cool, and collected down here with all of these easy Southern women. They like guys with money.

I will take a gentile southern gal over a northern gal any day. New Orleans, Atlanta, has top quality women with jobs, educations, who have not lost their feminine sides.

But it seems like you are only dating gold diggers, which all over the planet, not just the south.

All2morrowsparTs:farm machine: The cleansing of history continues as the intolerant continue to widen their scope of what is offensive. Why not leave these parks named as is as a testament to ill conceived failures? A tribute to our ability to persevere and triumph over adversity. When we lose sight of where we've come from don't we also risk letting history repeat itself?

So can I name the street you live on Hitler Way? Stalin Street? It keeps history dirty and is definately a testement to ill concieved failures and our ability to persevere and triumpth over adversity. How about the Hun Highway, The Mongolian Mile, Black Pleage Epidemic Expressway?

Cybernetic:Rapmaster2000: Onkel Buck: someonelse: Onkel Buck: It's more offensive that all the streets named after MLK usually run right through the worst crime infested neighborhoods

Not the worst.

[freebeacon.com image 798x498]

ohyou.jpg

/hating rich people is a learned behavior

Fail. You don't have to teach a dog to want another dog's bone.

Coveting is not the same as hatred.

Hatred and envy is pretty much the natural world order. Only society provides the framework to punish with jail or the pathway to deter me with opportunity from using my group to subjugate your group. Tolerance and respect is learned. Hatred is the default position we fall back to.

Rapmaster2000:TerminalEchoes: Rapmaster2000: People just don't want anything to change. Especially Southerners who always handle change the worst. Over the last 50 years all of these Yankees moved down and took the jobs that Southerners couldn't do because Southerners wouldn't change.

If Southerners had changed and spent more time working on math rather than practicing football, then they might have prevented the Yankee influx that has supplanted their inferior culture and heritage. These Southern people have no one to blame but themselves for the end of their traditions. That's how it's always worked. The winners write history.

If you people had collectively been more industrious, then you could be sitting around Manhattan, yammering about how the biscuits are so much better in Birmingham. Alas, you have to hear me lament the lack of decent bagels while you wait on me at the Waffle House.

Sounds to me like you need to wipe your vagina.

No, I'm calm, cool, and collected down here with all of these easy Southern women. They like guys with money.

GoldSpider:What confuses me is the amount of butthurt these "trivial monuments" seem to cause among the compulsively-offended.

*shrugs* Some people, having had to grow up dealing with segregation, bigotry, racial violence against them, and that sort of thing I guess have some issues with people honoring those practices, go figure. If that's actually confusing to you then that helps explain why you keep equating street signs to history.

Spaced Cowboy:No one is making the history go away. Where do you keep pulling this nonsense from? Have you considered being less retarded and maybe trying to grasp this simple concept that history remains despite the lack of your road signs.

Don't you think you're getting awfully worked up about these "trivial monuments"? Do you always get this angry and spiteful when you encounter someone with whom you disagree?

Rapmaster2000:TerminalEchoes: Rapmaster2000: People just don't want anything to change. Especially Southerners who always handle change the worst. Over the last 50 years all of these Yankees moved down and took the jobs that Southerners couldn't do because Southerners wouldn't change.

If Southerners had changed and spent more time working on math rather than practicing football, then they might have prevented the Yankee influx that has supplanted their inferior culture and heritage. These Southern people have no one to blame but themselves for the end of their traditions. That's how it's always worked. The winners write history.

If you people had collectively been more industrious, then you could be sitting around Manhattan, yammering about how the biscuits are so much better in Birmingham. Alas, you have to hear me lament the lack of decent bagels while you wait on me at the Waffle House.

Sounds to me like you need to wipe your vagina.

No, I'm calm, cool, and collected down here with all of these easy Southern women. They like guys with money.

Felgraf:Hrm. Gee. I am positively stumped. I'm sure dukwbutter can explain how this is, in fact, not about slavery, though.

Both Lincoln and Grant owned slaves. In his inaugural address of March 4, 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln stated, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Union General U.S. Grant said, "If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side."

Why don't we just names parks after their locations (Main Street Park, for example) and be done with it? It has the advantage that the location is in the name, so if you know where Main Street is, you know where the park is.

We really don't need to honor dead people. I know we love doing that, but it's really not necessary. They're dead. They don't give a shiat about anything anymore, much less how many parks, schools and monuments have their name on them.

GoldSpider:Spaced Cowboy: No one is making the history go away. Where do you keep pulling this nonsense from? Have you considered being less retarded and maybe trying to grasp this simple concept that history remains despite the lack of your road signs.

Don't you think you're getting awfully worked up about these "trivial monuments"? Do you always get this angry and spiteful when you encounter someone with whom you disagree?

I'm bored on Fark, just like you. This is more "meh" than "angry and spiteful."

If pretending that I'm all kinds of upset instead of just terminally bored makes this conversation more interesting, then run with it, I say.

ChuDogg:DROxINxTHExWIND: MagicMissile: I'm opposed to it also, simply because its part of our nations history.

We have schools and parks named after Malcolm X who was a hatred filled racist man, who in the end was shot something like 50 times by his own followers.

Get over it.

Someone left history class before the 8th grade ended. You need to download an update to your history database. You read like a MapQuest map that hasn't added the newer streets yet.

Let me guess, you have one of those "By any means necessary" posters on your wall right now. Idolizing the man holding an AK-47, peering out a window in defiance, not realizing when it was taken he was in fear of his life from the the Nation of Islam.

I take it you've never seen the movie "X". If you had, you'd know that Malcolm's issues with the Nation of Islam are well documented. But, if you know that, then it seems like you'd also know that his beef with the Nation of Islam was in part due to his growing acceptance of people of all races that came after his pilgrimage to Mecca. So, why would someone who obviously knows a little about history act as if he doesn't know that Malcolm X did not die hating white people? Puzzling.

Dr Dreidel:Warlordtrooper: dukwbutter: That's right. Everyone can be proud of their heritage. Except for Southerners. That seems fair, right?

I'm of German heritage? Would you have a problem with people being proud of THAT?

I'm of German heritage, too. I'm not proud of it specifically (my family's from basically every country in Europe that isn't the UK, France and Portugal), but I certainly wouldn't hide it. You can be proud of a heritage without incorporating the known-asshole parts of that heritage.

You're from the South? Awesome - talk about biscuits and football and NASCAR and Texas oil and Florida/LA heat and have a silly accent and wear overalls and drink you some sweetea. DON'T, however, be proud of secession, civil war and slavery. "Southern Pride" can be easily reappropriated to mean a Junetime march with rainbow flags.You're from Germany? Awesome - even though I don't like weissbier, schnitzel is proof of god's love, I know a bit of the language, your people are polite (the few native-Germans I've ever met, anyway) and the endless jokes about sterile efficiency never fail to amuse. DON'T, however, start wistfully remembering WWII from the Kraut side. So long as you're not very "white power"-y, I think you'll be OK citing your German heritage.

// this really shouldn't need to be said

This. Why so proud of causing the war that killed more than a half million Americans?

give me doughnuts:Dr Dreidel: You're from the South? Awesome - talk about biscuits and football and NASCAR and Texas oil and Florida/LA heat and have a silly accent and wear overalls and drink you some sweetea. DON'T, however, be proud of secession, civil war and slavery.

That's the point. Southerners aren't allowed to do any of that without having some assholes rub the rest of it in their faces. If you keep insulting people with something for long enough, they adopt it with pride just to be contrary and piss you off.

What kind of assholes do you hang out with? Living just outside DC for the better part of the last 20 years, I've met a million Southerners, and never once have I heard Northerners start bringing that shiat up to counter a Southerner's boast (unless a Southerner was being a dick about it) - most of us have moved on from the Civil War, mostly by not having reminders of the losing side's power structure every 30 feet.

EVERY culture has shameful parts of their history, full stop. When you start referencing that history, best to not recall those shameful parts. "Come to the South, we put 800g of sucrose in every glass of our tea!" will get a much better response than "Come to Norfolk, where we showed them Yankees what-fer!"

The Larch:Well, even a trivial monument to slavery and oppression is a bad thing. I think it's pretty awesome that we've successfully tackled so much of the big stuff and we're finally down to the little stuff.

I'd wager there are plenty of Robert E. Lee statues that need torn down.